Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/103

 LAWS. 89 falsehood, may I meet with misfortune ; but if I speak the truth, may I receive the blessing of the prophet of God, of all the saints of Java, and of my lord and king^ who now reigns,*' ratu. The mosque is the most common place for administering an oath, but some of the tribes consider the shrines of saints, or the burying-ground of their ancestors, as places of more solemnity. Among all the tribes, it is the principal rather than the witnesses that are sworn. *'In many cases," says Mr Marsden, * '• it is requisite they should swear to what it is not possible, in the nature of things, they should know to be true. A sues B for a debt due from the father or grandfather of B to the father or grandfather of A. The origi- nal parties are dead, and no witness of the transac- tion survives. How is the matter to be decided ? It remains with B to make oath that his father or grandfather never was indebted to those of A, or that, if he was indebted, the debt had been paid. This, among us, would be considered a very strange method of deciding causes, but among these people something of the kind is absolutely necessary. As they have no sort of written accounts, nor any thing like records or registers among them, it would be utterly impossible for the plaintiff to establish the debt by a positive proof in a multitude of cases ;
 * ilistory of Sumatra, p, 239.